Wrap-around carriers are well known as a relatively inexpensive but effective means for packaging articles, requiring blanks of only minimum size which are capable of running on packaging machines at high speeds. A wrap-around carrier is typically formed by wrapping a carrier blank around a group of articles and securing the ends of the blank together at the bottom of the carrier. By tightly wrapping the articles and gripping the articles with the edges of heel openings in the side panels through which the heels or bottom portions of the articles protrude, the articles are contained in the carrier and prevented from falling out through the open ends. An example of such an arrangement is found in a wrap-around carrier containing beverage bottles.
While such measures have been successful in containing bottles of traditional design in their wrap-around carriers, new bottle designs do not always lend themselves to conventional treatment. The trend to larger beverage bottles makes it incumbent to employ carriers that are not only structurally capable of supporting heavier loads but are able to positively prevent outward movement of the end bottles. This becomes even more difficult when the bottle design is such that it no longer includes a conventionally shaped heel. A conventionally shaped heel is circular in cross section, so that the relationship between the bottle and the heel cutout remains the same regardless of which portion of the bottle is facing toward the cutout. The orientation of the bottles within the carrier at the time of packaging and during shipping is therefore not a consideration in designing the cutouts. A problem arises when the bottle heels have varying contours of irregular shape. One such type of beverage bottle is formed of plastic and has a decorative bottom portion of petaloid shape. These bottles have support feet which are regularly spaced from each other about the periphery of the bottle. The sides of the support feet as well as the lower surface of the feet terminate at a point near the center of the bottom of the bottle, which is slightly higher than the bottom support surfaces of the feet. Thus when one views the bottom of the bottle, as in a plan view, the appearance of the bottom face is petaloid in nature, with the center area appearing to form the center of a flower and the support feet the petals.
Since the heel portions of petaloid bottles are not uniform, being broken up by the spaced support feet, the normal rotation of the bottles as they are moved into place for packaging makes it impossible to predict the exact portion of the heel which will be presented to a cutout at the time the carrier wrap is applied. Further, even if it were possible to orient the bottles so that the cutouts are able to fit the precise shape of the heel design presented at the time of packaging, rotational movement of the bottles in the package during shipping would tend to misalign the heel portions with the cutouts, rendering the cutouts ineffective. Aggravating the problem is the fact that petaloid bottles are sometimes formed with four support feet and sometimes with five, which present different contours to the cutouts.
Another problem of conventional wrap-around carriers is the ease with which the end articles can be removed from the carrier in a store and purchased as a single item, thus destroying the integrity of the carrier. A further problem is the visibility of the product bar code on the end articles. This can lead to errors in calculating the bill since the bar code reader will charge only the price of a single article if it reads the code of an end article rather than the code printed on the carrier itself.
It would be desirable to be able to employ wrap-around carriers to package bottles and other articles whose design makes it difficult or impossible to be held in place by side panel cutouts, and to do so without danger of the articles sliding out the ends of the carrier. It would also be desirable to have a wrap-around carrier that covers the bar code on the end articles.